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To provide a general understanding of grocery consumers' retail format choice in the US marketplace.

A random sample of US grocery consumers (N=454) was surveyed using a self‐administered questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques (regression, ANOVA) were used to evaluate the data.

Identifies demographic groups who frequent specific formats (specialty grocers, traditional supermarkets, supercenters, warehouse clubs, internet grocers) and examines store attributes (e.g. price competitiveness, product selection, and atmosphere) as drivers of format choice.

The results included in this research were gathered and reported on an individual format basis. In order to capture consumer choices across a range of grocery retail formats, forcing respondents to compare formats was not initiated. In addition, data pertaining to whether consumers had access to each and every type of format in the study were not collected. Examination of how dimensions of consumer access limit or expand retail patronage behavior could also be highly beneficial to grocery retailers.

This research provides grocery retailers that operate within the USA specific knowledge of the attributes that consumers consider to be most important when making format choices (e.g. cleanliness, price competitiveness, product assortment, courtesy of personnel), and identifies the demographic characteristics of these consumers. The results suggest marketing strategy implications for grocery retailers that operate in the US market. As competition in the sector continues to evolve and consumer demographics change within the US market, understanding the consumer‐format choice linkage will be critical to retailer performance in the industry.

This exploratory study uses demographics and store attributes as a framework for profiling consumers by their ultimate retail format choice. The paper is unique because there are few similar empirical studies focused on the US grocery sector.

In the context of increasing competition between chained retailers and family-owned retailers, it is key to understand the customer's format choice. Using a logistics regression (i.e., binary logit) model, we explain customers' preference to buy in supermarkets or in small-scale, mom-and-pop stores like nanostores. We collect a representative sample of over 110 surveys from customers in the district of Surco, Lima, Perú, which is a representative area of the features of Lima's residents. We asked customers to focus on analyzing their preference between two retail formats: modern channel (i.e., big-box retailers, supermarkets, and hypermarkets) and traditional channel (i.e., mom-and-pop stores, nanostores). Our surveys included factors pertaining retail format attributes as well as factors related to the purchasing process. The results showed that time available for purchase and a comparatively better perceived service at a mom-and-pop store (i.e., nanostore) are significant factors that explain a higher probability of selecting these retailers, while a better store's ambience benefits more supermarkets. The overall discrete choice model is able to explain 65% of the variance using pseudo R-squared of the actual format choice decisions.

This research shows that to reach their prime goal of building an efficient assortment, retailers need, beside increasing the outlet’s cost‐efficiency, to evaluate shoppers’ assortment perceptions so that what the store actually offers can be tailored to meet customers’ needs and expectations. Our findings reveal that consumers’ perceptions of the assortment range stems from the combination of few indicators, mainly the number of stock‐keeping units proposed and the availability of the favorite brands. Also demonstrates that consumers evaluation of the overall store assortment draws on the perceived choice within the product categories where they are highly sensitive to the assortment range.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast customer perceptions related to satisfaction with conventional grocery stores as compared to specialty grocery stores. The study examines store attributes of product assortment, price, quality, and service in order to determine which attributes have the greatest impact on store satisfaction for each store format.

A mail survey was sent to a sample of specialty and conventional grocery store customers. The ten state sample was drawn from US households located in postal (ZIP) codes in areas where national specialty stores (e.g. whole foods) were located.

Perception of satisfaction were higher among specialty grocery store customers compared to conventional grocery store customers. For both store formats, store price, product assortment, service and quality positively influenced satisfaction. Stepwise regression indicated that each store attribute contributed differently to store satisfaction for conventional and specialty store formats.

The results demonstrate that price, product assortment, quality, and employee service influence store satisfaction regardless of store type (conventional stores or specialty stores). However, the degree of influence of these attributes varied by store type. The results imply that while specialty store shopper satisfaction characteristics are clearly delineated, conventional store shopper characteristics are more difficult to pinpoint. Research limitations include a sample that is more highly educated and has higher incomes than the average American household.

Despite the growth of new product categories and new industry players, few studies have investigated customer satisfaction within the retail food industry. Comparisons of specialty and conventional food stores are equally scarce.

The purpose of the paper is to identify store format attributes that impact on store format choice when consumers conduct fill‐in or major trips to buy groceries. By doing so, we take into consideration that consumers patronise multiple (store based) formats depending on the shopping situation operationalised by the type of shopping trip.

The paper adopts the conceptual framework of random utility theory via application of a multinomial logit modelling framework. The analysis is based on a survey of 408 consumers representing households in a clearly defined central European retail area.

The results reveal a considerable moderating effect of the shopping situation on the relationship between perceived store format attributes and store format choice. Consumers' utilities are significantly higher for discount stores and hypermarkets when conducting major trips. To the contrary, supermarkets are preferred for fill‐in trips in the focussed retail market. Merchandise‐related attributes of store formats have a higher impact on the utility formation regarding major‐trips, whereas service‐ and convenience‐related attributes do so with regards to fill‐in trips.

The findings can only be generalised to retail markets with similar characteristics to the one under study. It is highly concentrated, contains a considerable share of small size retail stores, it is urban and has clear cut boundaries due to its geographical location.

This paper considers the fact that consumers patronise multiple store formats and investigates the moderating effect of the shopping situation – operationalised by different types of shopping trips – on store format choice.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the important but neglected role of retail formats in the transfer and positioning decisions of international retailers. The paper examines the role of core and country-specific attributes of particular formats in determining retailers’ local positioning in inter-format competition.

Focussing on three distinguished grocery formats (i.e. discounters, supermarkets, and hypermarkets) and using multiple-group structural equation models, the authors conducted consumer surveys in Germany and Romania to evaluate consumer perceptions of the core attributes of those formats and their influence on retail brand equity and consumer loyalty.

Although consumer perceptions of core attributes differ between formats in Germany and Romania, most of the core attributes of the formats affect retail brands with equal strength in both markets. Retail brand equity determines loyalty to all formats in both countries.

Retailers transferring their formats to foreign countries should place particular emphasis on managing the core attributes of a specific format, as these attributes are of paramount importance in establishing a strong brand. Additional country-specific attributes are also relevant to varying extents, depending on the particular format that is used. Assessing causal relationships extends retailer knowledge of the role of format attributes.

This study proposes a format-specific approach that is novel to international retailing research. The country comparison strengthens the study's implications, considers both a developed and an emerging economy, and accounts for the preference of Western European retailers to expand into Eastern European countries. The paper concludes that format transfer and positioning decisions occur within the boundaries of core format attributes.

Focuses on the impact of supercenters on traditional food retailers in four markets, including two small cities (Victoria, Texas; Gainesville, Georgia) and two large cities (Columbus, Ohio; Omaha, Nebraska). Consumer surveys were conducted in order to assess the effects of the entry of Meijer, Wal‐Mart, Kmart, and Target supercenters. The results show supercenters can gain from 15 to 20 percent of primary shoppers and an even greater proportion of secondary shoppers. Furthermore, the supercenter primary shoppers, and especially those of Wal‐Mart and Meijer, identified low price and assortment more often as the reason for store choice. In comparison, traditional supermarket primary shoppers were less willing to trade off locational convenience or, in some cases, quality and assortment. Wal‐Mart is predicted to continue to rapidly gain share at the expense of competitors who do not differentiate themselves in some significant way.

The purpose of this paper is to explore retail format choice among male shoppers, using desired store attributes and shopping orientations as predictors of format choice.

Male shoppers in the USA (n=560) were surveyed via the internet. Multiple regression was used to evaluate the data.

The findings identify distinctive predictors of male patronage across several retail formats including department stores, discounters, category killers, dollar stores and internet only stores.

The findings identify desired store attributes and shopping orientations of frequent male patrons of several retail formats. The information provided is useful for advancing the retail format choice literature as well as for retailers to better understand male patrons. Future research could examine patronage of newly developed retail formats and include situational variables that could provide additional predictive power for retail format choice among males.

This research provides retailers with specific knowledge to identify males who are likely to frequent specific retail formats based on desired store attributes and shopping orientations.

This exploratory study uses desired store attributes and shopping orientations to profile male shoppers of several retail formats in the USA. The research is unique because the investigation of retail format choice among males has been very limited.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze consumers’ reaction to assortment composition.

This study examines several scenarios: private label (PL)-only assortments; mixed assortments (PL and national brands (NBs)), and in the latter case both small and large assortments. Consumers’ reaction is measured through three dependent variables: store image, PL purchase intention and store-switching intentions. The authors ran a structural equation model (SEM) to analyze the influence of different explanatory aspects (product category involvement, attitude toward PL, value consciousness and assortment variety perception) on consumers’ reactions for each scenario. For this research, the authors carried out an online experiment with a sample of 1,400 individuals from a large panel of consumers.

Consumers react differently to different assortment compositions, giving importance to the differences between the three assortment models analyzed. The results show that the composition of the assortment, either according to its size or its structure, influences consumers’ response in a significant way. The results demonstrate that store image exclusively affects PL purchase intention in PL-only assortments. Only in mixed assortments is there a relationship between the assortment variety perception and store image, product category involvement and PL purchase intention, and both store image and value consciousness are related to store-switching intentions. Store-switching intentions decrease when consumers intend to purchase PL, but strictly in PL-only and large mixed assortments. Finally, value consciousness and variety perception are positively related to PL purchase intentions only in large mixed assortments.

One limitation of this research is that it is restricted to the Spanish context. Second, the methodology is based on an online experiment, with the advantages and disadvantages that this entails. Third, the authors did not differentiate between high- and low-value PL which, if undertaken, could be of interest for observing how brand value affects the management of retail assortments. Finally, the authors did not differentiate regular buyers at these retail chains from those who are not.

The comparison between different assortment compositions helps the authors to draw some very interesting conclusions. The estimation of different consumers’ responses is ideal for providing retailers with recommendations on how to frame their assortment strategies. Thus, the main recommendation of this study for retailers is to look for a “balance” between PL and NBs, i.e., to offer mixed assortments.

Aside from mixed assortments, this study estimates the consequences of assortments that are exclusively PL. The authors proposed and deployed a SEM, so this paper contributes to the retailing field by including multiple dependent variables – store image, PL purchase intention and store-switching intentions. The authors conducted an online experiment containing “real” brands, which is another contribution as it enables consumers’ response to be estimated in a “real” environment.

This paper aims to understand empirically how shares of standard and premium private label (PL) products affect a retailer’s marketing mix decisions toward national brands (NBs).

Using a comprehensive store-level data set covering 52 categories and 130 stores of two retailer chains during 2003-2009, this paper examines how shares of standard and premium PLs affect retailer marketing strategies for NB retail prices, promotions and product assortments. The empirical analysis uses a simultaneous equations model estimated by the generalized method of moments approach and controls for endogeneity between PL shares and NB decisions and potential confounding variables including consumer, manufacturer and retailer factors.

Standard PL shares are associated positively with NB retail prices and negatively with NB promotions and assortments. In contrast, premium PL shares are associated positively with NB retail prices, promotions and assortments.

The results indicate that retailers make strategic NB decisions through multitier PLs. Specifically, the evidence suggests that retailers use standard and premium PLs differently in promotion and assortment decisions toward NBs. NB manufacturers need to be cognizant of the increasing marketing power of retailers through their multitier PLs.

Prior research has mainly focused on the role of PLs as a strategic weapon to gain power in the channel and its impact on NB pricing decisions in a single PL context. After accounting for potential confounding factors (retailer, consumer and manufacturer) and endogeneity, the authors find empirical evidence that retailers appear to leverage standard and premium PLs differently in some marketing mix decisions toward NB. In particular, the results reveal PL performance to be a determinant of retailer NB assortment decisions.